housand
slaves a year. In 1748 the ministers of George II were equally jealous
of the credit of renewing it. It had even on one occasion been decided
in the Court of Common Pleas that an action of trover could be
maintained for a negro, "because negroes are heathens;" though
Chief-justice Holt scouted the idea of being bound by a precedent which
would put "a human being on the same footing as an ox or an ass," and
declared that "in England there was no such thing as a slave."
Subsequent decisions, however, of two Lord Chancellors--Lord Talbot and
Lord Hardwicke--were not wholly consistent with the doctrine thus laid
down by Holt; and the question could not be regarded as finally settled
till 1772, when a slave named Somersett was brought over to England from
Jamaica by his master, and on his arrival in the Thames claimed his
freedom, and under a writ of _habeas corpus_ had his claim allowed by
Lord Mansfield. The master's counsel contended that slavery was not a
condition unsanctioned by English law, for villeinage was slavery, and
no statute had ever abolished villeinage. But the Chief-justice, in the
first place, denied that villeinage had ever been slavery such as
existed in the West Indies; and, in the second place, he pronounced
that, whether it had been or not, it had, at all events, long ceased in
England, and could not be revived. "The air of England has long been too
pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man who
comes into England is entitled to the protection of English law."[159]
But this freedom was as yet held to be only co-extensive with these
islands. And for sixty years more our West India Islands continued to be
cultivated by the labor of slaves, some of whom were the offspring of
slaves previously employed, though by far the greater part were imported
yearly from the western coast of Africa. The supply from that country
seemed inexhaustible. The native chiefs in time of war gladly sold their
prisoners to the captains of British vessels; in time of peace they sold
them their own subjects; and, if at any time these modes of obtaining
slaves slackened, the captains would land at night, and, attacking the
villages on the coast sweep off the inhabitants on board their ships,
and at once set sail with their booty. The sufferings of these unhappy
captives in what was called the "middle passage"--the passage between
their native land and the West India Islands--were for a long time
unkn